Berger Fries And Wilson Stews

Berger Fries And Wilson Stews

Making Sense By Michael Reagan

What a quandary the Democrats and their media allies are facing. Both have to explain the inexplicable -- how in just a matter of a week or two, top Kerry advisers Sandy Berger and Joseph C. Wilson IV have been immersed in muck and driven off the Kerry reservation.

Sandy Berger lifted a whole bunch of top secret documents, reportedly stuffed them in his pants and socks, misplaced some of the purloined items and says it was all an honest mistake.

Mr. Wilson now stands revealed to be the liar he falsely claimed President Bush to be. In both cases, the muck sticks to the Kerry campaign, which doesn't appear to be too choosy in picking advisers to their candidate.

To the mainstream media - now trying either to explain away what authorities insist is a felony by terming Berger's theft "inadvertent," or simply avoiding covering the incidents altogether - when Democrats cross the line and commit a crime it is a "mistake."

On the other hand, should a Republican transgress in a manner similar to Mr. Berger's behavior, it would be alleged to be a heinous crime, preferably punishable by a long period in the slammer.

Allowing Berger to claim his action was "inadvertent" is comparable to allowing a bank robber who stuffed his pockets with a bank's money in his pockets before fleeing to claim his robbery was simply "inadvertent" or an "honest mistake."

Apparently the Feds don't see it in exactly those terms. As revealed by NewsMax.com, practically alone in a media suddenly deaf and dumb to anything dealing with the Berger and Wilson disclosures, U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Comey "raised the specter of a jail sentence" for Berger, saying that if he is found guilty of removing top secret documents from the National Archives that were supposed to go to the 9/11 Commission, he could go to prison.

As NewsMax.com wrote, even though his comments were widely quoted, the U.S. media edited out his reference to a possible stint in the big house for Berger.

Only Agence France Presse - quoted the Deputy AG in full, including this key observation on the Berger security breach: "It's our lifeblood to keep secrets," Comey told reporters in Washington. "All felonies in the federal system bring with them the promise of jail time, that's all I can say about that."

I can just hear a judge telling Berger that he had been found guilty of committing an inadvertent honest mistake.

Berger and his lawyer deny that he stuffed his pants and socks full of the documents, claiming he merely put a few of them in his suit pockets, but the Feds say they have witnesses. I would not be at all surprised if it turns out that Berger inadvertently starred in a few videos filmed by the omnipresent surveillance cameras as he went about stealing the documents.

In the face of the disclosures that Joe Wilson lied about both the role of his wife in getting the CIA to send him to Niger, and his claims that there wasn't a shred of evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to get his hands on yellow cake nuclear material, John Kerry and John Edwards and much of the media continue to charge that the president lied to the American people about this matter.

The Kerry-Edwards campaign plan is to present the president as a liar and if their charge itself turns out to be a pack of lies, it doesn't deter them. After all, when Mr. Kerry can't seem to get his own facts straight about anything, how can he be expected to shy away from propagating others' lies about his opponent?

These latest disclosures have disclosed just how shoddy the Kerry campaign is, and should give Americans a glimpse of what an ungodly mess a Kerry administration would prove to be.

Mike Reagan, the eldest son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Radio America Network. Comments to mereagan@hotmail.comfor Mike.